drain
1. a pipe or channel that carries off water, sewage, etc.
2. Surgery a device, such as a tube, for insertion into a wound, incision, or bodily cavity to drain off pus, etc.
3. Electronics the electrode region in a field-effect transistor into which majority carriers flow from the interelectrode conductivity channel
Collins Discovery Encyclopedia, 1st edition © HarperCollins Publishers 2005
Drain
A channel, conduit, or pipe used to remove rain, wastewater, or sewage.
Illustrated Dictionary of Architecture Copyright © 2012, 2002, 1998 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc. All rights reserved
drain
[drān] (civil engineering)
A channel which carries off surface water.
A pipe which carries off liquid sewage.
(electronics)
The region into which majority carriers flow in a field-effect transistor; it is comparable to the collector of a bipolar transistor and the anode of an electron tube.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Scientific & Technical Terms, 6E, Copyright © 2003 by The McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
drain
1. Any pipe in a building-drainage system which carries waste water or water-borne waste.
2. Any pipe or channel for carrying waste water or storm water.
McGraw-Hill Dictionary of Architecture and Construction. Copyright © 2003 by McGraw-Hill Companies, Inc.
drain
(jargon)(IBM) To allow a system to complete the processing of
its current work before the system becomes unavailable.
E.g. draining a device before taking it
off-line or telling
a
web server in a
server farm not to accept any new
requests but to finish processing any requests it has already
accepted.
This article is provided by FOLDOC - Free Online Dictionary of Computing (foldoc.org)
drain
One side of a field effect transistor. When the gate is pulsed, current flows from the source to the drain, or vice versa depending on the design. See collector.Copyright © 1981-2025 by The Computer Language Company Inc. All Rights reserved. THIS DEFINITION IS FOR PERSONAL USE ONLY. All other reproduction is strictly prohibited without permission from the publisher.
The following article is from The Great Soviet Encyclopedia (1979). It might be outdated or ideologically biased.
Drain
an artificial underground channel (pipe, cavity) for collecting and discharging subsoil waters and for aerating soil. Drains differ according to function (driers, collecting mains), structure, and materials. Pipes are made of such materials as earthenware, wood, and plastic. Cavities are of the mole or the slotted type, filled with gravel or fascines.
The Great Soviet Encyclopedia, 3rd Edition (1970-1979). © 2010 The Gale Group, Inc. All rights reserved.